Monday, March 19, 2012

Recently I got it into my head that I wanted to do a small quilt that featured an abstracted nude. Since my drawing skills are totally limited to doodling (and I'm not even very good at that), I decided to go really abstract and just design him with ovals and circles, adding only the barest minimum of details.

I finally came up with a pencil sketch that I thought would work, and went over it with a black marker so that it would be visible through a previously painted piece of China silk.

Using the outline as a guide, I added washes of color to the different areas until I was happy with the results. Happy = you can probably tell it's a nude male figure. That's as close as I'll probably ever be able to get to representational work!

In looking for background fabrics, I came across the left over glue gel resist fabrics that I painted several months ago. I moved these around behind the figure until I was satisfied.

I ripped the fabrics into roughly the shapes that I wanted to use, and placed them on a piece of batting that had been cut to size.

All the pieces were pinned into place on the batting.

When I placed the figure back on top of the background, I decided that he needed one more piece to break up the unrelieved rectangle of his space.

Copyright 2012 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.